A Catalog of Years Spanned and Lives Ruined
by forensicpathologistninja
Summary: or: Don't Let Your Bloodshed on my White Picket Fence A look at the moments that teach them that "epic" and "ruined live and bloodshed" weren't mutually exclusive.


**A Catalog of the Years Spanned and Lives Ruined (or Don't Let Your Bloodshed on my White Picket Fence)**

A look at the moments that taught them that "epic" and "ruined lives and bloodshed" weren't mutually exclusive.

**1 year after:**

"I loved Lilly," Veronica tells him, and the jeering voices in his head offer up that a lot of people have _loved_ Lilly, and most in ways he wouldn't like (and didn't know about until it was far too late).

He slams the door on his way out, and tries to ignore that every time he lashes out at Veronica it's because he's remembered another reason to be mad at Lilly.

Because Veronica may have cut her hair and adopted an attitude that makes the fucking _devil_ look sweet as a puppy (though he can still see a bit of the cotton candy pastel-innocent girl she used to be, when she's tired and the light hits her _just so_), but she is still the closest thing to Lilly he has left. The closest thing to Lilly he'll ever have. And it only adds to the irony that he's not sure Lilly is what he wants anymore.

**2 years after:**

For a single night, Veronica has no one but him in the entire world. Her mother has left her, her father has been blown up, her best friend has been murdered, her other best friend left to chase a girl who he shouldn't have been involved with in the first place (though that, at least, turned out alright in the end) and her ex-boyfriend has skipped the country with his bastard love child. And Logan doesn't think about it that way, because it would be cruel to find any little bit of satisfaction in her pain, but it is true. So he holds her and strokes her hair and whispers apologies that aren't really his to make (though God knows he has enough to apologize for himself).

They spend the night pretending to sleep, staring into empty space (where those they loved used to stand), and praying that Sheriff Lamb will wait awhile before harassing them about what happened on the roof. In the wee hours of the morning, just before sleep finally finds them, they talk about love. Both of them are careful not to mention the graveyards they could fill just between the two of them.

The two of them. Because the two of them is how it's going to be now, and forever. Because they are all each other has left. But he doesn't think about her pain in terms of himself. He refuses to be that shallow.

He doesn't think about her pain like that, but in the morning, when she rips from his arms with a gasp, it stings more than a little.

This time when the door shuts behind him he's wondering when she became a fairy princess, to have her dead returned to her so simply, and why he couldn't have just a bit of that magic. But he brushes it off quickly, because while Lynn is solely his, Lilly was Veronica's dead too, and he knows she'd give just about anything to have her back as well. (He wouldn't).

And because they could still fill a graveyard with the bodies of the ghosts they always see in empty beds and bus seats.

**3 years after:**

When he sees her lying on the ground beside her car; sees a handful of her hair on the ground, tribute to what she almost lost, his heart rips in two. He's already buried everyone else who ever meant anything to him, and he can't stand to lose her too, even if it's just another wall put up between herself and the world.

So he takes her to the hospital to get her some medicine to flush the GHB out of her system, takes her home, and he and her father spend the rest of the night taking care of her. Because though they've both buried so many people they love, it's no secret that if they had to bury her, it would be the last thing either of them did.

The last thing besides kill the damn bastard.

**4 years after:**

His fight with Gorya Sorokin led to only minor bloodshed, despite Veronica's warnings.

Not long after the fight in the cafeteria, Veronica's dealings with Neptune's seedy underbelly led to proof that prospective sheriff Vinnie Van Lowe was in cahoots with possibly every gang and secret society Neptune had to offer (and some he'd just made up himself). Liam and the Fitzpatricks weathered the storm just fine, grew stronger, even, but the Sorokin's took a big hit, and their carefully constructed hierarchy started to fall apart.

Apparently the Irish and the Russians don't get along, and the Irish in Neptune had the PCHers and the rich white families (read: the Tritons and the Castle) backing them. Or at the very least, not backing the Sorokins, and that was enough to make their little splinter cell run off, tails between their legs.

Of course, some people thought it was the idea of Keith Mars as sheriff again that ran them out of town, but no one could really say for sure. The man himself never commented on the whole thing, just stood up on his podium and smiled a little smugly in the direction of his newest supporter, Jake Kane.

**5 years after:**

Her father moves into a house not long after he wins the election, and Veronica's job allows her to rent an apartment nearby. She loved her dad, but at 21, she really is ready for a place of her own. Besides, with Alicia and Darryl moving in with her father (Wallace, who came back from Africa with ghosts in his eyes and a war in his heart, moved to South Carolina months ago… the east coast, with its quieter waves and gentler breeze better suited him these days), she'll need the peace and quiet her own place will afford. And the space, because with her dad as sheriff and Vinnie run out of town with the criminal underworld, the town needs a good PI, and she's the only one in the running.

Not to mention the advantages of privacy (which she's come to understand the value of despite – or maybe because of – her work).

The first time Logan comes over, he helps her move in. They christen almost every piece of furniture they can fit on, and some they probably shouldn't have tried to fit on. The second time, she's put everything out and what greets him when she opens the door is a large framed photo of the two of them with the Kane siblings. The next thing is the photo beside it of a much older looking Duncan with a small child in his arms. There is a ring on his finger and a tall willowy red-head by his side.

"He sends me pictures sometimes," she tells him, once he can hear again. "Since the Manning's died and the charges have been dropped, he's started keeping in touch again. His wife, Mari, she's pregnant. She's adopted Lilly. They live together in Australia."

He nods. Little Lilly has gotten so big, and her beautiful green eyes hold all of the mischief and none of the malice that her namesake's did.

"He always was a family man." Something passes between them, and they practically move in together that weekend (though the market and her trust issues convince him to keep the little condo he'd bought after deciding that the Grande really did have too many ghosts and bad memories).

**6 years after:**

There is a man who works in Veronica's office, who won't just leave her alone. This enrages Logan, but he knows better than to say anything about it. Veronica's not Lilly, and she's not Kendall, and she's not _him_, so he knows she'd never look at this other man as more than a friend (judging by her disdainful looks, not even that). But one night, she comes home with red eyes and tear-stained cheeks and tells him that _Gary_ googled her and now he won't stop asking her about what it felt like to be burned alive, or if she thought it hurt to jump from the roof of the Neptune Grande. Logan has to lie down to keep himself from killing the man then and there, but he regains control of his anger to wrap his arms around Veronica in comfort. By the fourth time he pulls her from a nightmare, he's decided (as if he hadn't the moment he saw her tears), that there will be a face-off in the morning.

"Listen, man, if you don't leave her alone, I swear I'll bash your–" Logan cuts himself off. Its funny how Lilly's death still burns, even all these years later.

The man doesn't know – can't possibly know – why it is that Logan didn't finish his sentence, but he merely nods curtly and walks away. He doesn't seem sincere, and Logan worries a bit, but the next week, Gary is reassigned to the New York division (after a splendid weekend of golfing and, surprisingly, surfing, with Veronica's boss), and they never hear from him again (and this has got to be another on a very short list of ruined lives that he'll _never_ feel guilty about).

**7 years after:**

He's asked her to marry him, for the very first time. It's a little strange that he thought today would be the day to ask, but she's sure he has his reasons. Maybe for once they could remember October 3rd as a happy occasion, not as the occasion on which their friend got her head bashed in by his murdering father. He always was the one to try to bring happiness out of sorrow (then again maybe it's not so strange that he chose this day to propose).

But the second he kneels he knows he's made a mistake. He should just get up and try to pretend this never crossed his mind, but he's gone too far now. So he keeps digging his grave, and when she doesn't answer right away, he just nods and sits back down. They enjoy their meal in silence, and, for the first time in a long while, they don't go home together.

Just before he drops her off at her apartment, she bites her lip and tells him "I just don't know if I can belong to somebody else."

And he knows what she means, because she's been _Duncan's _girlfriend and _Lilly's _best friend and _Keith Mars' _daughter, but this is the first time she's ever been simply _Veronica_ and he can understand why she feels like he's trying to take that away from her. He knows too, from being _Aaron Echolls' _son and _Lilly's _boyfriend, and then the taste of freedom he felt after they were all dead and gone wafts through his senses and he just nods to her. He really does understand.

Before she leaves, he slips the ring box into her hand anyway.

**8 years after:**

He hasn't seen her in a year, not since she left to join the FBI manhunt for some serial killer or another. The sight of her makes his heart ache, thinner than before, dark shadows under her eyes, wrapped up in another man's arms. Some smarmy blonde guy delivering her to her father's house at 10pm. How chivalrous of him.

Logan wants to punch him in the face.

At least until his phone rings and Keith Mars is on the other end, telling him to get his ass upstairs because Veronica's cousin Dave wants to meet the man behind the stories, and all is right in the world again.

She is wearing his ring on a chain around her neck, and when he flicks it, she meets his gaze for the first time in a while. And this time when they make love, she's still there in the morning. It's the first time she's slept through the night since – since the last time he held her in his arms.

He wakes up to her telling him she needs someone to belong to and that someone is him.

**9 years after:**

She's been acting a little off recently, and though he's known for longer than she has what the reason is, it still throws him for a loop when she tells him she's pregnant.

Not so much _what_ she tells him as _how _she tells it. She's sobbing and apologizing for burning the garlic bread (because she still insists on cooking though he's offered to get people to do that for her), and then suddenly she just cried into his shoulder that her hormones are out of whack because of this baby, and she's wanted one for a long time, and she's so glad it's his, but they might not get to keep it because the doctor thinks she might actually be too small to sustain a pregnancy to term and that damn doctor was such an asshole to her…

Past this point, Logan can't even make out what she's saying, but he does manage to figure out that another consult is needed, and he gets the doctor who delivered him and baby Lilly (because comatose mother has to be harder than small mother, right?) on the phone right away.

**10 years after:**

Their little ones are now 6 months old. Daniel Keith Echolls, head full of brown hair, and his twin, Lynne Anne Echolls. They were born two months premature and have spent most of their little lives in the NICU, but it's been two months to the day that they were allowed to bring the little ones home, and Logan is thrilled to watch his young wife feed their squalling son. Their little girl has already been fed, and he's currently rocking her back to sleep.

It hardly seems epic, but he's pretty sure he'd heard songs about moments like these (because these days their house is always filled with music), and ruined lives and bloodshed have no place here anyway.

And he looks around him at his beautiful wife, his son (who will never know the burn of leather on skin or the betrayal of a father who cheats on his mother), his daughter (who will never know the smell of alcohol on her mother's breath, or wake up to nothing but a music box and a note), and their (remarkably modest) house with a pool (because he insisted on _that_, he wouldn't let Lilly's death ruin _everything_ for them) and a quiet neighborhood (something they both insisted on, after years of the drama of Neptune), he doesn't miss all the chances he didn't take or the lives he could have had.

There weren't any songs written about them, but in hindsight, Logan decides Veronica was right, all those years ago. Maybe their love had spanned years continents (his business trips to Europe and Asia; her cases in Africa and South America), but sometimes the lives they left in shambles by the wayside still haunt them at night, and they could fill oceans with the blood that's been shed, and it really shouldn't be that hard. He's begun to realize that perhaps the only definition of "epic love" is "enduring" and that ruined lives and bloodshed only belong in tragedies and ghost stories (of which they each have several to tell).

Their epic journey ends in a modest brick house that rests a mere three minutes from the beach, and a good three hours away from Neptune, with a dog and a garden and a small family headed by an FBI agent and a writer (with a cleverly disguised pseudonym).

All in all, "epic" is a lot more like "normal" than he'd ever thought it would be.


End file.
